Such photos always fascinate me. I mean the color photos from the past, the older the better. These ones is no exception. We got used to see only black and white photos from the World War 2 - the color photography was very expensive at that times

and actually was not widely implemented, and especially usually nobody took the expensive equipment to the battlefront. Still there are some color photos from the times where our grandfathers were young, like 70 years ago.

There is an ancient tomb situated on the Red Square of Moscow, right in the centermost point of the city with a real mummy inside. Yes, it's not ancient of course, it's only 70 years old, but still there is a tomb and a mummy. A mummy of Lenin, the leader of the first Russian communists who lead the country to the revolution and broke out the Tsarist reign thus wanting to establish the freedom to all, like, poor people. This is what every Soviet Russian kid was taught at school from his early age. The name of Lenin was considered the most sacred word, together with his depiction. If the schoolboy got as bold as, like, drawing some funny whiskers in the text-book for the Lenin's portrait he could be severe punished, his parents summoned to school and then the special report could be sent to their job which could cause them being fired or even imprisoned. In other words everything concerning Lenin's name was a holy cow. Same way was about his tomb. This place was a real shrine for the multi-national people of Soviet Union. Hundred thousands people when came to Moscow just had to visit the so called "mausoleum" and to get a fast glance on the mummy of the Lenin lying under the bullet-proof thick glass. To do that people had to stand many hours in line through

all the Red Square, but it was considered worth of this. It's interesting but even now, twenty years later after the Soviet Union started collapsing, the tomb is still at it's place right on the Red Square and the mummy body of Lenin is still inside. And there are even still lines of visitors waiting for their turn to pay a visit to the Communist leader. The tomb itself was build of the red stone which was mined only in one place in Russia, in the village Shoksha of Karelia, and is being highly estimated by the luxury architectural designers from all over the Europe. They order this stone even to Paris for some decorations, and so from this stone this Lenin's mausoleum was built. First it was made of wood though, we've told about this in our "Lenin Tomb History" post looking like a stairway pyramid with a platform on top, which was used by all the Soviet Leaders to greet the Soviet People while on parade: This modern look of this structure wasn't born at once. There was a special Russia-wide contest for the best design of the future "mausoleum" structure. Some of the photos of those works from the archives are here today, this is how it could look.

The import of USA second hand cars in Russia was booming for a few last years before the economic recession has started. Hundred thousands ex-USA owned cars were imported. The spare parts for such cars are not that

cheap as the cars themselves because you know, you need to import them from overseas and pay many taxes. So some people find substitutes from the locally available materials for their Jeep Cherokees.

"The Siege of Leningrad, also known as The Leningrad Blockade was an unsuccessful military operation by the Axis (Nazi) powers to capture Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) during World War II. The siege lasted from September 9, 1941, to January 27, 1944, when a narrow land corridor to the city was established by the Soviets. The total lifting of the siege occurred on January 27, 1944. The Siege of Leningrad was one of the longest and most destructive sieges of major cities in modern history and it was the second most costly." - from Wikipedia. During nine hundred (!) days a few million people city of Leningrad suffered from cold and hunger, being deprived of almost all supplies of food and fuel. Many thousands died, those who

survived remember this not very willingly. The situation with food was so heavy, no food was sold/distributed among people except a few grams (not even tens or hundred grams) of bread, and not each day, that people had to eat stuff that they would never eat in normal life, like making soups of leather boots (because leather is of animal origin) or boiling the wallpaper because the glue with which they were attached to walls contained a bit of organic stuff. Of course many occasions of cannibalism occurred. On those photos you can see some pieces of those old photos made during those black days overlaid to the modern city views, respecting the place and angle of view.

Lately Russian children can buy for themselves such a strange toy in the shops. It is a figure of a pig with a "passport"-like id, describing it (see on photo). People investigated the manufacturer and it came out that the toys come from China and mainly for European markets, so they are not supposed to appear in Russia. The manufacturer makes

different toys of animals and "populate" with them different countries. He has chosen Russia for pigs, but asked distributors not to sell the toys directly in Russia but preferred Western countries. And the toy originates from China. Now people who have seen this ask if it was done on purpose or it's just a pure coincidence.

Demand for the luxury in growing. One of the expanding industry is luxury boats production. New companies constantly appear offering their services in luxury boat building. Nobody had any experience first, there were no luxury boats in Soviet Russia for

70 years in a row. So some manufacturers copy their works from the Western industry, but some go their unique, Russian way, creating something looking not alike to any other, like this one made for one of the Siberian governors.

This happened a few days ago in Sverdlovsk region, near Yekaterinburg city. The guy, the truck driver had been penalized by the road police and was temporary deprived of the right to drive for some months. He was very angry for road policemen just because it was his job and being deprived of the drivers license meant loosing job for him. Still, he kept himself quite after this. Then a few weeks later his son was also penalized by the same local road policemen and his son's driver's license was taken by them too, meaning that now both of the men in the family lost the job. At this point he couldn't keep this inside of him but decided to

commit an act of revenge. He took his old KRAZ truck got a good deal of speed and smashed it against the local road police office. The policemen in interview told later than they were so deeply shocked when in the middle of the working day a giant KRAZ truck suddenly broke though the wall of their office smashing the table with computers and heating pipes, causing the hot water sprinkle all around the office. The driver was arrested and kept in jail, where as being told he was feasted and honored as a real hero. He said later "The only thing I feel sorry for is that I didn't went faster".